Risk of spontaneous abortion in Italy, 1978-1995, and the effect of maternal age, gravidity, marital status, and education

This paper describes the trend in the risk of spontaneous abortion in Italy from 1974 to 1995. There was a dramatic decline in the risk after the law that legalized induced abortion was passed in 1978, which implies that probably many induced abortions performed before 1978 were registered as spontaneous abortions. Data for 1991 have been extracted from the Italian national registers of births and abortions and analyzed to investigate the effects of maternal age, gravidity, marital status, and education on the risk of spontaneous abortion. In comparison with women under age 20 years, the risk is found to be increased for women aged 35-39 (odds ratio = 1.45) and women over age 40 (odds ratio = 3.10). The odds ratio is almost 2 for women who have been pregnant two or more times previously. Unmarried women have an increased risk (odds ratio = 1.33), but no important effect of education was observed. There is an important interaction between maternal age and gravidity. The risk of spontaneous abortion is excessively high for young women with high gravidity. It is hypothesized that this could be due to the effect of short intervals between pregnancies.